1 A Nightmare

Vampire!

Ashley opened one of her heavy eyelids and found herself looking into the terrible face of a monster.

"Tell me what will it be: life, or death?"

It crouched over her where she lay, curled and shivering on the floor. Fangs glinted in the moonlight, razor sharp, lethal. The tips of them were still stained with fresh blood--her blood, drawn from the bite the vampire had made in her throat only moments before.

'To live ... or to die'

A petrifying voice that reached into the heavy slumber of her mind forced her to come awake. The words drifted at her through the darkness.

"Now…now just tell me," the creature whispered amusingly. Intrigued to what will this human's answer.

She tried to speak, but managed only a whimper. She groaned against the floor beneath her, trying to fathom the voice and the relentless decision it demanded from her mind. This wasn't the first time she'd heard these words, this question.

Life?

Or death?

Her throat felt dry and rough.

Outside, the cold wind howled, bitter and unforgiving, filling her ears. No one to hear her screams, even if she'd tried.

Ashley tried to get up, but couldn't move her weakened muscles to as much as flex in response.

This monster could take her life in an instant. She didn't know why it hadn't. Why was this happening to her? She didn't know why he kept pressing her for the answer to a question she had been asking herself nearly every day of her life for the past 5 years.

She went through a lot in those painful years. Ever since her parents and her little brother died on that icy stretch of highway she often wished she was killed along with them. Everything would have been so much easier, less painful, if she had.

The inhuman eyes, intense bright, pupils as thin as a cat's that fixed on her in the dark now was unblinkingly judging her.

There was some markings trailed all over the monster's skin. The complicated patterns seemed to throb as he watched her. The silence prolonged while he patiently examined her as he might with an insect trapped inside a glass jar.

When the creature spoke again, this time his lips did not move. The words penetrated her skull like vapor and sank deeply into her mind.

I'm curious, human. Tell me what it will be: life, or death?

She closed her eyes and turned her head away, refusing to look at the monster. She refuses to be part of this wicked, unspoken game that the creature seemed to be playing with her. A predator toying with his prey, watching it agonize while he decided whether to spare it or not.

'Does the heavens hate me so much?' Ashley couldn't understand and accept why. She was trying to live a normal life after that accident. Tonight could have been special. After all those years she's been through she finally tried to live a normal life. Her friend invited her to celebrate Valentine's Day and asked her to go to a double date with her. It was about time she finds someone she can be with. Maybe she'll feel less lonely. However, it seems her fate was already doomed. She chose to home.

"Damn you! You son of a," she slurred, her voice thick and rusty.

He grabbed her chin and turned her head around to face him once more.

The creature could see how lifeless her eyes has turned to. It seems this human has given up.

""I'm giving you a chance. There isn't much time now."

Anger boiled up inside her. She wanted to tell him to piss off, to kill her and get it over with, if that's what he meant to do. He wasn't going to make her beg, damn it. She wanted to scream and curse but the words wouldn't come.

She couldn't ask him for death. Not even when death might be the only escape from the monster that held her now. And the only escape from the pain of having lost the people she loved.

He released her from his grasp and watched with maddening calm as she slumped back down to the floor.

She struggled to speak. To utter the words that would either free her or condemn her. He rocked back on his heels and cocked his head in silent consideration.

To Ashley's horror, the monster extended his arm, he thrust his finger into it and sliced deep into his flesh above his wrist. Blood was dripping from the wound.

"No.. no.." Her instincts were warning her that something awful was about to happen. More awful than the nightmare she experience hours ago when this monster took her as prisoner and fed off her blood.

A sudden surge of fury rolled up from somewhere deep inside her. She couldn't hold it down.

She beat her fists against the hard, inhuman flesh of the monster's bare shoulders. "You monster! Get away from me! Don't touch me!"

She did everything she could. Railing at him with every ounce of strength she could summon. Hitting him again and again. Still, he crept closer.

"Let me go ..." she murmured. Gathering the last shred of strength. She latched on to her captor then hitting him again and again.

"No," she moaned, when she closed her eyes, darkness surrounded her.